Embarrassingly condescending, clueless lecturer

Ancient peoples see the rhetoric for what is it — Same Ole policies and prejudice

Excerpt, editing, brief comment by Carolyn Bennett

“Mr. Obama and his equally gutless Secretary of State have no idea what they are facing in the Middle East. The Arabs are no longer afraid.” — Middle East expert and journalist Robert Fisk

What the U.S. President should have said in his Middle East speech, Fisk wrote in the Independent before today’s live version, is, “We will leave Afghanistan tomorrow. We will leave Iraq tomorrow. We will stop giving unconditional, craven support to Israel. Americans will force the Israelis — and the European Union — to end their siege of Gaza. We will withhold all future funding for Israel unless it ends, totally and unconditionally, its building of colonies on Arab land that does not belong to it. We will cease all cooperation and business deals with the vicious dictators of the Arab world — whether they be Saudi or Syrian or Libyan — and we will support democracy even in those countries where we have massive business interests. Oh yes, and we will talk to Hamas. …”

President Barack Obama, of course, said no such thing. He continued to lecture people on matters about which he is carelessly clueless. The people of the Middle East know far more about their lives and what they should and should not do than any U.S. official will ever know and, glaringly arrogantly, disrespectfully, these officials historically have not a care of knowing.

“What Mr. Obama does not understand … and, of course, Mrs. [Hillary Rodham/Bill] Clinton has not the slightest idea – is that, in the new Arab world, there can be no more reliance on dictator-toadies, no more flattery,” Fisk wrote.

“The CIA may have its cash funds to hand but I suspect few Arabs will want to touch them. The Egyptians will not tolerate the siege of Gaza. Nor, I think, will the Palestinians. Nor the Lebanese, for that matter; and nor the Syrians when they have got rid of the clansmen who rule them.

“The Europeans will work that out quicker than the Americans – we are, after all, rather closer to the Arab world – and we will not forever let our lives be guided by America’s fawning indifference to Israeli theft of property. …

“… [T]he old Middle East is over. The new Middle East is about to begin. And we better wake up.”

Anymore, the U.S. president, his Cabinet, and his rhetoric seem silly — an embarrassing portrait in cluelessness.

Sources and notes

At the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C., President Barack Obama spoke today on events in the Middle East and North Africa, http://sg.news.yahoo.com/photos/us-president-barack-obama-speaks-events-middle-east-photo-180523439.html

“Robert Fisk: President's fine words may not address the Middle East's real needs — In a keynote speech today, Barack Obama will try to redefine America’s relationship with the Arab world. Our writer is skeptical,” May 19, 2011, http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-presidents-fine-words-may-not-address-the-middle-easts-real-needs-2286077.html

Robert Fisk (b. July 1946, Maidstone, Kent, England, UK)

Journalist and expert on Middle-East conflicts, author of several books about Middle-East conflicts, Robert Fisk is a recipient of Amnesty International UK Press Awards including for his articles on the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999. He has also received the British Press Awards’ International Journalist of the Year seven times and twice won its ‘Reporter of the Year’ award. Fisk holds undergraduate and doctoral degrees in English and Classics (Lancaster University) and Political Science (Trinity College, Dublin), and is the recipient of several honorary degrees.

Quotes attributed to Fisk:

“War is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death. It represents the total failure of the human spirit.”

“The best definition of journalism I have heard: ‘to challenge authority — all authority — especially so when governments and politicians take us to war, when they have decided that they will kill and others will die.'” http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1745178/bio

Among the reactions in the Middle East to the U.S. president’s ‘Arab Spring’ speech collected by Al Jazeera were these:

“The peoples of the region are not in need of Obama’s lectures. Obama reaffirmed his absolute support for the policies of the (Israeli) occupation and his rejection of any criticism of the Occupation.”

“We affirm that Palestinian reconciliation is a Palestinian affair and that the (peace) negotiations have proven to be pointless.”

“We were expecting a lot more from Obama’s speech today regarding the Palestinians who suffer from the hardships of the occupation and what the Israeli occupation does against the Palestinians but Obama did not bring anything new.”

“What Obama needs to do is not to add slogans but to take concrete steps to protect the rights of the Palestinian people and the Arab nation.”

“Reactions: Obama's ‘Arab Spring address’ — Reactions to Obama’s speech outlining his vision for the Middle East and North Africa,” May 19, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/05/2011519164415837225.html

Recap

MIDDLE EAST NEAR EAST COUNTRIES

The Middle or Near East consists of the lands around the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. These lands extend from Morocco to the Arabian Peninsula and Iran, sometimes beyond. 

Some of the first modern Western geographers and historians who tended to divide the Orient into three regions gave the region the name Near East. In their three-region designations, the Near East applied to the region nearest Europe, extending from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf; the Middle East, extending from the Persian Gulf to Southeast Asia; and the Far East, encompassing the regions facing the Pacific Ocean.

The change in usage from Near to Middle East began evolving before World War II and extended through the war. The term Middle East was given to the British military command in Egypt.

So defined, the Middle East consisted of the states or territories of —

Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon
Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Jordan
Egypt, The Sudan, Libya and
Various states of Arabia proper (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Trucial States, or Trucial Oman [now United Arab Emirates]

 Subsequent events have tended, in loose usage, to enlarge the number of lands included in the definition, among them —

Three North African countries: Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco “closely connected in sentiment and foreign policy with the Arab states” 

Afghanistan and Pakistan, because of geographic factors, state official and others take into account in connection with affairs of the Middle East. 

Greece occasionally is included in the compass of the Middle East because the Middle Eastern (then Near Eastern) question in its modern form first became apparent when the Greeks in 1821 rebelled to assert their independence from the Ottoman Empire). Turkey and Greece, together with the predominantly Arabic-speaking lands around the eastern end of the Mediterranean, were also formerly known as the Levant.

Historically the countries along the eastern Mediterranean shores were called the Levant. Common use of the term is associated with Venetian and other trading ventures and the establishment of commerce with cities such as Tyre and Sidon as a result of the Crusades. It was applied to the coastlands of Asia Minor and Syria, sometimes extending from Greece to Egypt. It was also used for Anatolia and as a synonym for the Middle or Near East. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the term High Levant referred to the Far East. The name Levant States was given to the French mandate of Syria and Lebanon after World War I, and the term is sometimes still used for those two countries, which became independent in 1946. Levant (from the French lever, ‘to rise,’ as in sunrise, meaning the east.

Use of the term Middle East remains unsettled, and some agencies (notably the United States State Department and certain bodies of the United Nations) still employ the term Near East.

Middle East. (2011). Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Deluxe Edition.  Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica

_______________________________

Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]

_______________________________

U.S. hostilities 2nd March week ending

Compiled, edited, comment by Carolyn Bennett

A schizophrenic foreign relations policy blind to principle, law, human suffering

AMERICA at war with its own

Down with democracy, up with autocracy

U.S. State Department spokesperson PJ Crowley affirmed what the world already knew: the U.S. Defense Department’s treatment of Bradley Manning is ‘stupid’ and ‘counterproductive.’

U.S. soldier Bradley Manning, now being detained and reportedly being ‘tortured’ by the U.S. government has been accused by that government of leaking confidential U.S. documents to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. Today, two days after he had reportedly criticized the Pentagon’s treatment of Manning, news came that Crowley had resigned his position with Hillary Rodham Clinton’s State Department.

AFGHANISTAN

U.S. ALLY?

Arms

Civilian deaths in the Afghan conflict have reached “numbers never before seen since hostilities began in 2001.” In the past four years, almost 9,000 civilians have died. The UN report figures for 2010 constitute a 15 percent rise over 2009.

As if to push Crowley’s point in a broader context—

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has reportedly acknowledged that the United States, its military involvement in Afghanistan, will likely extend past the planned 2014 end of combat operations. Reportedly, the Afghan government is in agreement with the continued invasion and occupation of that country.

The U.S. Defense Secretary arrived in Afghanistan last Monday in the wake of the previous Sunday’s protests to the killing of civilians. In their demonstrations, hundreds of Afghans chanted, ‘Death to America.’

In the past three weeks in the east of the country, at least four incidents have involved civilian casualties.

BAHRAIN

HOME TO U.S. FIFTH FLEET

Arms

Amidst anti-government protests on Sunday, Bahraini riot police reportedly used tear gas and rubber bullets to put down hundreds of anti-government protesters attempting to block the capital’s financial district. Protesters refused to fall back.

From Associated Press reports, Al Jazeera said another protest on Sunday at the main university in Bahrain “descended into violence with security forces and government supporters clashing with students.”

IRAQ

U.S. ALLY?

Oil and Arms

Like other protesters in the Middle East, Africa and Southwest Asia who are challenging their governments for jobs, responsive governance and basic services, in Iraq hundreds of protesters are continuing to challenge the U.S.-installed government.

Several cities across Iraq saw demonstrations on Friday. Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, the city of Fallujah, west of the capital, along with several other cities, including Sulaymaniyah in the north and Basra in the south, reported protests.

“Iraq’s government,” Al Jazeera reports, “has been shaken by a string of rallies across the country since the beginning of February.”

IVORY COAST

Arm, ignore

Protests in the Ivory Coast (Cote d’Ivoire) continue to challenge government forces over the questionable presidential election of Laurent Gbagbo.

Government loyal security forces on Saturday “launched a deadly attack against fighters backing political rival Alassane Ouattara.”

Gbagbo has refused to step down from the presidency though UN-certified election results show Ouattara the winner. Since the November 2010 elections, more than 400 people have died in the conflict.

LIBYA

U.S. ALLY (?) ENEMY (?)

Arms buyer, oil producer

U.S. turns from anti to pro (oil) to anti Muammar al- Qaddafi within a singular entrench regime and foreign relations policy

In a conflict between Libyan President Muammar al- Qaddafi and “rebel forces,” the Qaddafi forces on Saturday “cleared ‘armed gangs’ from the oil-rich town of Brega in the east.”

In other news from Libya on Sunday, the Libyan government countered the Arab League’s siding with the U.S. and France in supporting a no-fly zone over Libya, saying such action was ‘an unacceptable departure’ from the Arab League’s charter. Although the United States called the Arab League decision, an ‘important step,’ the no-fly zone proposal still faces UN Security Council opposition from member states Russia and China.

Earlier in the week, the U.S. Secretary of State revealed that during her coming travels to the Middle East she will meet with forces in opposition to Libyan President Muammar al- Qaddafi. Clinton’s action followed right wing French President Nicolas Sarkozy who, on Thursday, made his country the first major European country (despite EU opposition) to recognize Libya’s Benghazi-based opposition National Council as the country’s legitimate representative.

PAKISTAN

U.S. ALLY (?) Arms buyer

Thirty-seven (est. 37) people died and 40 suffered wounds when a suicide bomb exploded at a funeral procession in Matani, 20 kilometers west of the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar.

The day before 25 people had died and 125 suffered wounds when a car bomb exploded at a natural gas filling station in the central city of Faisalabad. In the past week alone, an estimated 100 people have died and double that number suffered wounds in similar bombings.

Also in Pakistan, the people are still roiled by another instance of U.S. impunity in crimes of war.

The new U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan met senior officials in Islamabad last week as the U.S. and Pakistan continued to be in conflict over the crimes, detention and prosecution of CIA contractor Raymond Davis. Davis “shot dead two Pakistanis” and claimed they were “robbers.”

Washington has taken the position that Davis has diplomatic immunity and acted in self-defense against ‘robbers.’ A Pakistani court has ruled that Davis does not have diplomatic immunity, and should stand trial.

PALESTINE

U.S. PROXY/ALLY

The Israeli cabinet has approved the building of hundreds of new homes for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, a day after five members of a settlement family died.

The Palestinian Authority condemned the settler attacks against the Palestinian people in the West Bank and asked the Quartet [the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia] “‘to urgently intervene to stop the actions of the settlers.’”

SAUDI ARABIA

U.S. ALLY

The ‘Day of Rage’ demonstrations planned in Saudi Arabia failed to materialize because of a government security clampdown. The demonstrations here were supposed to start after Friday prayers but, with security forces operating checkpoints in key locations across several cities, there were reportedly no signs of rallies.

However, countries across the Arab world continued to experience fresh anti-government protests.Close to the eastern Ghawar oil field and major refinery installations in the city of Hofuf, reports said more than 200 protesters had rallied. Complaining of discrimination by the country’s dominant Sunni majority, Shia minorities have held scattered protests across this city.

After Friday prayers in Kuwait, an estimated 500 demonstrators took to the streets in Jahra, west of Kuwait City, the capital. Hundreds of stateless Arab protesters demanded citizenship and other rights. Elite anti-riot police used tear gas to disperse the demonstrators.

YEMEN

U.S. ALLY (?) ENEMY (?)

Anti-government protesters have camped out for days at Tagheer Square demanding that Yemeni President Ali Abd Allāh Saleh step down. Early Sunday several thousand people gathered in Sanaa, setting up barricades in an effort to separate themselves from riot police.

The U.S. government “called for an end to the violence at protests in Yemen, which in total over the weekend claimed the lives of seven people.”

U.S.-led

WAR DEAD?

Casualty sites reporting March 13, 2011

(accurate totals unknown)

• Anti-war dot com Casualties in Iraq since March 19, 2003

[U.S. war dead since the Obama inauguration January 20,

2009: 211] Information out of date

Wounded  32,987-100,000

U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000

Suicides estimated: 18 a day

Latest update on this site: February 25, 2011

http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

• Iraq Body Count

The worldwide update on civilians killed in the Iraq war and occupation

Documented civilian deaths from violence

99,980 – 109,230 

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

• ICasualties figures:

AFGHANISTAN: 1,499 U.S.; 2,364

IRAQ: 4,439 U.S.; 4,757 Coalition

 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/oif

Sources and notes

“Crowley quits over Manning comments  — U.S. State Department spokesman resigns after calling Pentagon ‘stupid’ over treatment of soldier accused over WikiLeaks, March 13, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/03/201131317356184984.html#

 “Afghan civilian deaths jump  — The UN report on civilian deaths says the toll increased by 15 per cent compared to last year,” March 9, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/03/2011391229382651.html#

“Gates: U.S. may extend Afghan mission — Defense Secretary says U.S. troops could stay in Afghanistan in training role beyond the planned 2014 withdrawal,” March 7, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/03/20113761614567225.html#

“Footage shows crackdown in Bahrain — YouTube clip appears to show man shot in chest with tear gas canister as police also use rubber bullets on protesters,” March 13, 2011,

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/03/201131375850321229.html#

“Arab world witnesses more protests  — Protests seen across many Middle East nations but ‘Day of Rage’ fails to take off in Saudi after major security effort,” March 11, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/03/2011311141047609595.html#

“Deadly clashes in Cote d’Ivoire — Law and order breaks down, 10 dead and dozens injured in Abidjan as Gbagbo forces fight Ouattara supporters for control,” March 13, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/video/africa/2011/03/2011313154729798824.html#

“Libyan rebels flee Gaddafi advance  — Government forces regain key oil town, state TV reports, as anti-Gaddafi rebels fall back towards eastern strongholds,” March 13, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/03/2011313101739903833.html#

“Clinton to meet Libyan rebels — U.S. secretary of state says she will meet representatives of opposition council, as France, UK call for Gaddafi exit,” March 10, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2011/03/2011310101413705407.html#

“Many dead in Pakistan funeral blast — At least 37 killed and another 40 wounded as bomber blows himself up among mourners in the country’s northwest,” March 9, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/03/2011397258740365.html#

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/03/20113761614567225.html#

“Israel to build more settler homes  — Plan for several hundred units in occupied West Bank announced a day after Palestinian attacker killed settler family,” March 13, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/03/20113137914633959.html#

“Arab world witnesses more protests — Protests seen across many Middle East nations but ‘Day of Rage’ fails to take off in Saudi after major security effort, March 11, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/03/2011311141047609595.html#

“Yemen police fire on protesters — Scores of people injured as security forces shoot at pro-democracy demonstrators in a bid to disperse them, March 13, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/03/20113131119867820.html#

ʿAli ʿAbd Allāh Ṣāliḥ (also spelled  Saleh, b.1942, Bayt al-Aḥmar, North Yemen [now in Yemen], Yemeni military officer who led a coup against the government of North Yemen in 1962 and who became president in 1978. In 1990, he became president of a reunified Yemen,

Ṣāliḥ, ʿAli ʿAbd Allāh.  (2011). Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Deluxe Edition.  Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica

___________________________________________

Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]
___________________________________________